Wasted time at

Spafford meeting

To the editor:

This is an open letter to residents of the town of Spafford. You should know how your Town Supervisor Gordon Ireland, chooses to run our town Board meetings.

On Feb. 10, I was in attendance for our town Board meeting. Ireland had placed Joe Vecchio first on the agenda with the subject being “Ethics and Open Government.” This party then proceeded for 25 minutes, uninterrupted, to rant and rave against what he saw as unfair treatment directed

toward himself as an individual, asking for retractions and apologies. There was no relevance to town government and the whole tirade left me wondering why we were listening to all this.

Ireland sat quietly attentive during this scene, overlooking threatening behavior towards members of the audience and the town Board members. When Vecchio finally finished the only people who clapped were "Gordon's people," four to five individuals seated in the rear of the building. Then it became clear this was an attempt of propaganda aimed at making Gordon Ireland look good. It didn't work.

It then came time to listen to two citizens who wanted to make presentations on town issues, one was alternative uses for a building purchased by the town and the other was the development of a master plan. These citizens spent hours of volunteer time gathering this information, investigating these issues. We almost didn't get to hear these presentations after wasting the first 25 minutes of the meeting.

I think it is a shame that our town Supervisor chooses to waste the town Board's time and the citizens' of Spafford time and does not even take a minute to thank these people for their time and effort.

Come to the next meeting, the second Thursday of the month, March 10, and watch your elected officials at work.

SANDRA D. WEIGEL

SPAFFORD